An aesthetic appraisal of an author whose work possessed a trenchant social realism fused with fantasy. Arlt was an early precursor to Latin America"s greatest literary accomplishment, "Magical Realism". Robert Arlt (1900-1942) became one of the leading and uniquely different novelists dramatists and journalists not only of Argentina, but also of the River Plate and the rest of Latin America. His influence is so strong that critics such as Mexican Carlos Fuentes have considered him one of the forerunners of the Latin American "boom." This volume focuses on some of Arlt"s less studied works (such as his short story and theatre works), departing from previous traditional critiques. By rereading Arlt"s work within the wider cultural framework of theatre and popular literatures. Most of his short stories were first published in popular newspapers. We analyse the impact of the author"s deliberate appropriation of both popular genres and canonical texts and offer some tentative suggestions as to the reasons his work proved so important for Argentine literature. Ultimately, we propose an approach which opens new avenues for studying this author.